Dei heard muffled voices behind each of the doors they passed in this section, but his scan told him most of the cells held only one person. Rather than actually talking to others, he assumed it was closer to muttered ramblings.

There were a variety of affinities from what he saw of his Soul Pulse, but most fell into the same sixteen. He didn't recognize most of these common affinities, but three were intimately known to him.

He counted twenty one Fortitude users, twenty five Kindness users, and eight Wrath users. From this, he could infer that eleven of the others were Virtue and Vice affinities.

But what were the last two? Based on the fact that he was on Earth, where Prime humans were the only variant, he'd guess they were Endurance and Chase. When he'd spoken to the affinities, they said Prime humans had Weapon, Tools, Endurance, Chase, and many others as natural affinities. Dei imagined Endurance and Chase were more significant parts of Prime human behavior, and thus, better represented here.

"Why are you tense? Why are you afraid and excited?" Perumah spoke into his mind, cutting his musings short.

Ultimately, he knew he was just trying to distract himself. He had an entire lifetime of memories of being raised by Oscar. Even if he didn't have the full brunt of familial instincts, he did still love his family here. Before his soul had been refitted by the System to better accommodate his body as Dei, he'd spent long days yearning to speak to his parents again. To say goodbye one more time. He'd prayed they were okay, and that his death hadn't harmed them too much.

A fool he was. Once he was in his new body, he'd forgotten so quickly that the world did not only exist from his perspective. Of course his family would be irrevocably changed by his death. Of course his father would not simply lay down and let the situation with Taj go. Wrath was a major part of Dei's life, but his dad? His dad embodied Wrath. He would not settle for anything less than a violent end to whoever he blamed for the loss of a dear family member.

'Leven was so loved in his life. Of course he would be equally missed in his death. He was not the only one to yearn for closure.'

He didn't let the emotions show outwardly though. As much as he wanted to run to his dad, tell him everything and give the old man a hug, it was not to be so. At least not yet. He didn't know how the government would react if they knew they had hostages in their hands.

The Champion's people would protect them when he was gone, but an entity was made up of individual parts, and any of those could be idiots. It was not in the U.S.A's best interests to anger Dei, but all it took was one trigger happy fool to send him into a blind rage.

He would have to bide his time, and have a real reunion after his dad was within the care of The Champion's church.

After a long, palpable silence, he finally responded to Perumah. "...It's a lot for me. To see my dad again, knowing the pain I've caused him and being unable to apologize or explain myself."

Confused, she asked "But why? As I understand it, none of the pain was your fault. You took the correct course of action in lashing out at your former lover and friend, so the blame lay either with them or the officer that killed you."

"It's illogical, I know, but I love my family. Whether I intentionally caused it or not, I am pained to know I was involved in hurting them. That, if I took other actions, perhaps I could have spared them from suffering."

"But if Leven had taken other actions, would you exist at all? Grieving your own creation is an absurd notion, as the mistakes have led you to not only gaining power, but the ability to right your previous wrongs, yes?"

"I suppose so… yea, but I'd say love is the most illogical emotion of them all. Consciously, I agree with you that I have more happiness now than I would've if I'd survived to continue living as Leven, but there is still an aching in my heart to do everything I can to make up for all the suffering, whether I caused it or not."

Perumah did not respond, entering a ponderous silence and leaving him to ruminate about his father once more.

His thoughts quieted though as Matthew's eyes landed upon one door in particular, and Dei knew they'd arrived.

The enraged growls resounding from within brought a lump to his throat, but he swallowed his sorrows all the same. He couldn't change the past, only make up for it in the present.

Turning around as he stood in front of the door, Matthew said "Here it is, though I warn you, the man attacks any who enter except his own family. Not to say I think he will be able to harm you of course, but please do not injure him."

"I understand, this will only take a few seconds."

Walking past Matthew, he saw there was no door handle- not an issue though, as the card reader next to the entrance turned from red to green, and it slid open.

When the gap was barely wide enough for him to see through, an arm quickly snaked out, attempting to grab Dei by the neck. With his thinking speeds, it was laughably easy to catch his father by the wrist.

Connecting with the man's soul, he wasted no time in pulling all the mana he could feel into Cycle of Sealing. Compared to the struggle he'd had with the Karma user, the absorption of his fathers mana was finished within a blip.

Not only did his dad subconsciously assist him in removing the extra mana, but the Wrath itself was weak, likely drained of Concentration by his fathers own efforts.

More than just Wrath came pouring out, and Dei found himself the new owner of two hundred Wrath mana, three thousand Kindness mana, and six thousand Null mana.

He was taken aback at the sheer quantity, because his father simply did not have a mana storage spell. All of this ran through his soul, free range.

It was more than he'd ever seen uncontained, but less than he'd actually expected there to be. This was not a lifetime of mana. Instead, he had to assume that when his father went on missions, he would subconsciously try and pass some of his excess mana off to the enemies he killed.

When he emptied his fathers soul out in seconds, the man collapsed forward into Dei's arms as the door finally opened all the way.

Dei gently lowered his father to the ground, looking him over for any outward damage caused by such a long imprisonment. Other than being covered in sweat and panting heavily, he was the picture of health.

With a groan, his father's eyes fluttered open, "How long have I been out?"

"Longer than I'd have liked," Matthew said from the side. His expression was softer than Dei had seen thus far, and he could barely spot the shine of tears within them. "It's been nearly a year since you were overwhelmed. You're lucky a Visitor from another universe decided to help us out. A stroke of luck too, because he landed directly in your house. Kaylee was the first to beg for help."

His dad seemed to focus on him when Matthew said that, Dei shooting him a wide grin. "I've heard a lot about you, Oscar. Let's get you on your feet and out of here. I've got a few more patients to heal."

"A few…?" his eyes widened. "You're getting more than just me?!"

"Of course. Everyone here will be back to their senses in no time."

"But… How…? The madness…"

"You know, that's a good question," Dei said, frowning slightly. "I have a spell dedicated to storing and compressing mana, but it was supposed to be at max capacity when I absorbed your mana. I was fully ready to squish things down in order to make room for more… but… for some reason I didn't need to."

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Taking his fathers hand and helping him up, Dei cast his sight inwards to look at his storage spell. He hadn't thought about it before, but he'd technically manually upgraded the skill… what, three times? Once by absorbing his Echo, another time by remerging it with his Kindness and Wrath affinities, and a third time by using Connection to link it with his entire self.

The echo granted it independence from him, his affinities granted it stability and depth, and Connection did a whole slew of mysterious stuff. Did it perhaps increase how much the spell could hold? It was now able to go anywhere in his body, and shared a connection with his entire body. Perhaps its half physical, half spiritual nature meant it could utilize some weird spatial tricks?

When he looked at the new representation of the spell though, he didn't see anything of the sort. The figures riding atop his Leviathan lived, mostly, in harmony. That being said, they took up a very small portion of the space atop the things back.

'Ugh, I have to stop ignoring how these spells choose to represent themselves. It is clearly far more literal than I'd assumed.'

Eyeballing it, the spell could fit perhaps four times as much mana on its back as it had initially. Four and a half if some were willing to risk falling off the sides.

When I got here it was level 346 and had a storage capacity of 13,840. Does that mean it can now contain 55,360 mana? Holy shit, what a storage that would be. This doesn't even have to be a theory though… I'm in the perfect place to test it. Going by my dads mana, I now have around 22,000 mana. Less than half of what it theoretically could be. I'd intended to start compressing mana, but that can wait for later. There are experiments to run.'

Bringing himself back out of his soul, he provided the excuse "It seems Earth's physics have reacted with my magic oddly. My storage spell has been forcibly upgraded, so this job will be easier than even I'd assumed at first."

Matthew was back to being grim faced at finding he was now even stronger than he himself thought.

'You know, isn't it a bit silly that he's such an open book to me? This is a trained professional in negotiations. He should be more neutral… or…"

Looking back, Matthew was guarded? At least according to regular human body language. To Dei though, the man was so obvious. His brow scrunched in confusion, doing a quick scan of his own memories and comparing them to those of his previous life.

He belatedly realized he was now significantly better at reading even the slightest body language quirk, and quickly attributed it to something he'd initially disregarded: Beastial Communication.

When he became a Slaughterer, that was one of his bonuses- and it seemed to have a secondary function.

More than just the ability to translate monster body language to human body language, it translated any body language to something he could understand, even the slightest cue. He was now something of a savant when it came to seeing people's internal emotions, whether they tried hiding it or not. He almost wanted to laugh with how being raised without society resulted in him being supernaturally good at reading people.

"That's incredible!" Matthew lied through his teeth. "Shall we move on? Oscar, you will be escorted to a plane nearby and sent back to your family soon enough."

"If it's no trouble… I'd like to stay, please? We both lost many friends to the madness, I would like to be there for them as well when they come out."

Again, Matthew's gaze softened, and he nearly opened his mouth to agree when an order came through the earpiece.

"No. Everyone will want to do that, and it will eventually get cramped near the end if over two hundred Elite are all waiting for their friends. There will be a banquet in the mess hall for everyone to get caught up, share this with Oscar."

Nodding, Matthew relayed the entire order. Oscar seemed a bit down that he wouldn't be there the moment his lost friends were brought back, but he understood. Dei kept the pain off his face as he watched his father leave, unwilling to compromise his guise just yet to see him for a moment longer. 'I'll see him in the mess hall as well... and maybe once The Champion's church starts protecting them, I can talk to him as myself.'

With his father gone, Matthew led Dei not to the next door over, but one much further away.

Seeing his confusion, Matthew said "There are some priority targets we'd like you to help first, just in case your storage is not strong enough to help everyone."

'Ah yes, that actually makes a lot of sense. Some are likely stronger or more stable than others, better to get those back in action.'

When they reached the next room, Dei heard nothing from within. He was motioned to go first and Matthew explained the patient to him while taking a few steps back.

"This one is a Patience user, the overabundance of it results in people making complex schemes that take decades to come to fruition, forgetting to live in the present completely. We have to lock these ones up because their schemes are hard to root out and throw off other plans, especially the plans of sane Patience users. Most of the time, the mana in their soul kills them long before the shortest of their plans come to light, and then we have to deal with the results without even knowing if it's the entire thing. It is… frustrating."

"How long has he been here?" Dei asked.

"About a year, same as Oscar. A bit less."

He nodded and walked forward, letting the door slide open. This one didn't immediately lunge at him, and he realized he hadn't actually seen what his fathers cell looked like.

He quickly located the man sitting cross legged in the middle of the room, staring at him with assessing eyes. Dei kept part of his attention on him, but the rest of his mind was occupied with looking around the Room.

It was incredibly nice. For one, the walls weren't made of gray stone or anything, but a dark wood like material, similar to the floor. There was a "window" showing an open field, letting sunny light in.

He saw a desk with a computer on it, and many single-player games downloaded. Not only that, but he was surprised to see an actual chat room where he could talk to people. Initially Dei thought it was some kind of breach, as there was no way they'd allow this man to contact the outside word, but when he looked closer he saw them discussing their imprisonment. It seemed that many of the people in here were able to talk to the others.

There was a shelf with personal belongings, many books, and other amenities. He could even see several doors leading further in. He could guess that at least one of them was the bathroom, but did they also have a kitchen? This place had couches and a TV so it had to be closer to a living room.

It was… nice. Very nice. He wasn't ashamed to admit he thought the government would've skimped on the living situations for these people, but he was completely wrong. Either because they were important soldiers, or their families still visited them frequently, something had forced whoever was in charge of these places to actually put forth some effort.

When he was done looking around, he fully focused back on the man. "Hello there, would you mind if I approached you?"

He nodded, "Please do. I assume you're here to help me?"

"I am."

"Thank you."

It made Dei's heart clench. He'd seemingly retained enough of his mind to understand something was wrong with him, but not enough to stop whatever was going on. It deteriorated his sensibilities, but the person was still in there.

He hadn't moved a single muscle since Dei had walked in. Hadn't blinked, hardly moved his eyes, his pupils hadn't even dilated or narrowed. He was absent.

Kneeling down, he placed a hand on the man's shoulder and connected with him, seeing what he was working with.

The poor man's soul was in much worse straits than his fathers had been. For one, he had around 1,100 Patience mana within him, though he only had around 2,000 Null mana. Since he had more affinity mana, it was clearly decaying him faster, though it was still not nearly lethal. He had a few years left in him, if unattended.

Now that he had another person to compare it to, he could see that his father's mana had clearly been cleaned out to a degree. With his mom's occasional visits to relieve the pressure, he would've eventually come to, even without Dei's intervention. He did briefly wonder why the Kindness mana was not lethal to his father as most other affinity mana's were long term, but that was a question for later when he had more examples to draw from.

Now that he had examples of gradual affinity mana poisoning, Dei suspected that Prime humans being the only variant on Earth was… not a coincidence. Perhaps there'd been some others once upon a time, but the laws of physics here just did not suit them well at all. Their natural Racial abilities involving the soul's endurance allowed for them to avoid quickly eroding when subject to large amounts of affinity mana.

When he pulled all that mana out, storing it away, a light returned to his patient's face. A subtle widening as he finally focused on what was right in front of him, staring at Dei.

After a few seconds, he broke into a grin and tears filled his eyes. He quickly stood up, looking like he wanted to say something, but couldn't. He just hugged Dei tightly, and Dei gave him an awkward pat on the back.

"You're a Godsend, brother. I'll be in your debt forever."

"Don't worry about it, really. You owe me nothing."

They both walked out, and the man was quickly ushered away.

'You know? Even if the government plans to try and capture me, it'll be worth it if I can help everyone here.'

By this point, Soul was completely silent. No longer was he socializing whatsoever, he was on the job. Not only that, but what little conversation there was, Dei didn't register as casual- he registered it as data collection on an enemy.

Still, he didn't let it affect his work. There were many people in this facility, and he intended to save all of them.

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